How to Make Your Passwords Safer

Tips for making your passwords safer

Passwords are the most common way for authenticating users worldwide, however, they have been in slow decline for the past decade. This is why businesses need to find alternatives to this outdated security measure or find ways to make passwords safer in order to protect their employees, data and assets.

Since passwords are hard to remember and are susceptible to theft or extraction by hackers, what other methods can you use for additional security? This is exactly what we will discuss in this important post.

Making passwords safer:

Below are some alternatives to passwords along with their pros and cons:

Security tokens

Security tokens, both soft and hard, provide a reasonable level of security as they require a specific item for login. Moreover, tokens generate one-time passwords based on a ‘seed record’ that is synchronized with a central server.

However, token-based systems are highly expensive to deploy. Also, they require users to have their tokens with them at all times and safeguard them from theft and loss.

Biometrics

Biometrics are identifiers such as face recognition and fingerprints. They currently have popular applications such as Face ID and Apple’s Touch ID. What makes biometrics secure is that the technology is based on what the user is. This means, they cannot be lost or hacked. Moreover, they provide a better user experience as they are easy and quick to authenticate.

On the downside, biometric systems still lack accuracy and may be very expensive to use. Furthermore, they are prone to hacking as biometric markers can be forged using high resolution photos.

Phone-based authenticators

If you are looking for leading security solutions in the tech world, phone authenticators are the next big thing. Below are 3 main methods that mobiles use for authentication:

1) Push notification apps: Offer a smooth user experience and work by sending a user’s access request through a server and offering an immediate response. The response is either a security challenge or a message that authentication has taken place. Learn more about push notification apps here.

2) Software tokens: These use your smartphones to calculate a one-time code using your smartphone’s clock as well as the algorithm in your app’s software. However, the fact that soft tokens one-time passwords are located on a network-connected device makes them vulnerable to attacks as they are open to remote threats. To better understand software tokens, click here.

3) Text messaging: Initially, SMS authentication was used in addition to passwords. However, the value of the password diminished and applications started using SMS as password alternatives. The biggest advantage of SMS authentication is that they don’t require users to install any app on their mobiles. On the other hand, they are weak on security as they can be easily compromised. Click here to know more about the advantages of SMS authentication.

Armed with the above knowledge, which security method do you think you can use to make your business passwords safer and why? We look forward to reading your valuable insights in the comment section below.